From there, De Mille created innovative folk-ballet routines for Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945), winning the 1947 Tony award for her choreography in the play Brigadoon.

"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark," she once said.

With passion and vision, she created new ways to dance. A taskmaster who balked at excuses and anything less than excellence, she once advised students, "Dance in the body you have."

Often, she believed dance could tell the story better than dialogue and let her steps speak her story. "She was a bearer of greatthought and light for all of us to bask in," praised dancer Tommy Tune.

An advocate for dance as an artform in America, she helped establish the Heritage Dance Theater at North Carolina School of Arts. De Mille explained: "One of the good things about having some recognition is that I can do something for the people I think ought to have more, and correct some of the matters fate fails to take care of."